One significant background fact is that the world is currently
moving through a period of extraordinary turbulence reflecting
the genesis and intensification of deep changes associated with
the current techno-economic revolution, led by micro-electronics
and accompanied by a constellation of developments based upon
new, science intensive technologies (biotechnology, new
materials, new sources of energy, etc.) (Herrera 1986). This
situation implies that sustainable land use must aim not only at
preserving and maintaining the ecological base for development
and habitability, but also at increasing the social and
ecological capacity to cope with change and the ability to retain
and enlarge the available options in the face of a natural and
social world in permanent transformation. Sustainable land use in
a rapidly changing world requires the capacity to confront many
different types of change at the same time, without compromising
the social, economic, and ecological sources of renewal, as well
as to reduce vulnerability and retain or enlarge the range of
available options.

Thus, the concept of sustainable land use cannot mean merely
perpetuation. The central question is what is to be sustained and
what is to be changed. Approaching sustainable land use, and
sustainable development, requires (Gallopín et al. 1989): (1)
getting rid of accumulated rigidities and impediments; (2)
identifying and protecting the accumulated foundations of
knowledge and experience that are important as a basis upon which
to build; (3) sustaining the social and natural foundations for
adaptation and renewal, and identifying and enhancing the lost
renewal capacity needed; (4) stimulating innovation,
experimentation, and social creativity.

For sustainable land use, the issues of technological
pluralism (complementary use of traditional, "modern,"
and high technology) and technological blending (constructive
integration of high technology into existing technologies, such
as using biotechnology to improve the yield and pest resistance
of traditional crops - thus increasing efficiency and
substituting for pesticides - or applying advanced ecological
theory to redesign production systems based on shifting
cultivation to improve sustainability) assume paramount
importance, requiring new forms of organization and an integral
strategy for technological development and diffusion. The
upgrading of traditional technology and empirical knowledge will
become especially important for the medium- and small-scale
sectors of rural areas. Many traditional technologies are already
better adapted to local conditions and ecological cycles than the
expanding "modern" technology. Technological blending
could improve yields and avoid some of the limitations of
traditional techniques. Such technological integration could
reduce conflicts, promote self sustainable technological
innovation, be easily absorbed and adapted to local situations,
and favour social, cultural, economic, and environmental
sustainability. Special emphasis should be allocated to
developing systems of production for the already altered
ecosystems, including "neo-ecosystems" generated by
human activities. Strategies should be developed for choosing
areas for protection involving large-scale ecological functions
and processes.

A general criterion is the maintenance of productive
pluralism, with the coexistence of different major types of
agriculture integrated through sub-national, national, and
regional policies. An example of different, coexisting, types
appears in table 10.5. Structural reforms and technological
innovations directed to the transformation of the present
subsistence agricultural sector into an efficient and sustainable
peasant agriculture will be required. New forms of
high-technology diversified agriculture should be developed,
directed to the selective exploitation of local genetic resources
for food, medicine, industry, etc. It will imply the development
of technologies for a new efficient recollection agriculture in
diversified ecosystems, as well as new ranching and wildlife
management systems, viewing ecological diversity, heterogeneity,
variability, and singularities as resources rather than as
hindrances or constraints. Forestry should emphasize the
revalorization of the forests as multi-purpose producers (wood,
energy, wildlife, special products, ecological functions). This
will require deep changes in storage and commercialization
systems. Today, market and consumer demand are geared to
guaranteeing uniformity in products. This has favoured the
dominance of mono-cropping, which is highly vulnerable to pests
and genetic erosion. The challenge is now to ensure uniformity in
quality and delivery at the consumer level while managing and
even nurturing variability at the production system level. This
implies a completely different approach to the whole system of
production/distribution of agricultural produce.

1. Modern,
capital-intensive agriculture. Located on land with
higher comparative ecological advantages (fertile and
stable soils, optimal climate, good irrigation
potential). Not necessarily in the form of large mono-
cultures. It includes diversified crops, biological
control of pests, crop rotation, and soil conservation.

1. Modern intensive
livestock-raising. Capital-intensive animal
husbandry, in herds or in barns, and intensive raising of
wildlife with high food or commercial value.

1. Integrated forestry.
Carried out by companies and cooperatives linking
scattered households. Based on the sustainable management
of natural and altered forests, mainly in the tropical
rain- forest zone, and including the rational use of most
species (not just a few, as is the current practice). The
products, or domestic consumption and export include
timber agglomerates, hardboard, paper pulp, wood flour
for animal feed, chemicals, raw materials for the
plastics industry, fertilizers, soaps, charcoal,
fuelwood, and hunting and fishing products.

1. Intensive marine
industrial fishing. Confined to open seas. Managed by
companies or large cooperatives. Mainly directed to
domestic consumption and export, exploiting a diversity
of species.

2. Peasant agriculture.
Requires the implementation of structural reforms and
technological innovations. Production directed to
satisfying local food requirements as well as yielding
cash products of wildlife management and high unit value
made possible by special opportunities provided by local
ecological conditions. Multi-purpose integrated or mixed
farming widely adopted. Mainly labour intensive, as well
as intensive in technologies appropriate for diversified
and small-scale production. Technological blending very
significant.

2. Extensive
livestock-raising. Implies a modernization and
rationalization of the current extensive ranching, and
includes the harvesting and use of native species and
wildlife management. Most current subsistence and nomadic
pastoralism would be transformed into this activity or,
alternatively, into peasant agriculture.

2 Recollection forestry.
An artisan forestry, socially organized and provided with
scientific research inputs, savannas, and shrubby
semi-deserts. Complements peasant agriculture, with
communal organization of zones of extraction. Products,
depending on the local ecology, could include palm
sprouts, rubber, mushrooms, nuts, and palms.

2. Modern marine artisan
fishing. In the coastal zones. Implies rescuing and
improving existing techcniques, using many species.
Requires research and technical assistance (mainly to
reduce post-harvest losses). Produce directed to domestic
consumption (assuming changes in the current patterns of
consumption) and export.

3. High-technology
diversified agriculture. Directed to the selective
exploitation of local genetic resources for food,
medicine, industry, etc. Implies the development of new,
efficient technologies for diversified ecosystems.

3. Modern and
high-technology harvesting. Implies the management,
domestications and harvesting of wildlife in
captivity, semi-captivity, or wilderness for the
production of meat, fur, fine wool, skins, and hides for
domestic con- gumption and for export. Major candidates
are chamelids, capybara, otter, alligator. Under good
management, they can produce higher economic yields than
cattle.

3. Productive plantations.
Run by companies or cooperatives in tropical rain forests
and dry tropical and subtropical forests with scientific
research inputs regarding local fast-growing species.
Mainly for the production of paper, fuelwood, charcoal,
and timber.

3. Marine aquaculture.
In the coastal zones, estuaries, and fishponds. Implies
setting priorities for the management of local species
and the protection of estuaries as breeding grounds.
Production for domestic consumption and export.

4. Indigenous farming
systems. By respecting cultural diversity indigenous
communities can maintain can maintain their lifestyles
and integrated production systems if they so choose.

4. Protective
reforestation. Important for watershed and highland
protection; directed to restoring ecological regulation
of floods and reducing erosion and the silting of
reservoirs.

4. Modern freshwater
artisan fishing. Similar to its marine counterpart,
but directed essentially to domestic and local
consumption.

Eco-restructuring for peasant agriculture in Latin America: An
illustration

The case of peasant agriculture is a good illustration of the
potential role of technical change for sustainable development if
integrated with socioeconomic policies. Peasant agriculture
(including here much of so-called subsistence agriculture) is
important in terms of the number of people involved, the intense
environmental pressures it generates in many countries of the
region, and the concentration of rural poverty.

The problem cannot be solved through technological fixes. An
integral strategy for the transformation of the current
subsistence agriculture into a sustainable and profitable peasant
agriculture would need to include efforts in (a) facilitating
access to the means of production, (b) eco-restructuring of the
national economies and of the marketing and distribution systems,
(c) community empowerment, as well as (d) research and
development.

The strategy proposed here might be labelled Utopian by some
readers. However, one should consider that technical innovation
and diffusion have already occurred in the past few decades on a
greater scale than implied in this section. Many remote areas are
already being connected through radio, TV, and telephone
networks, and communication costs are fast declining. The next
decade or two will almost certainly involve tremendous additional
technological change. The need to address the fact that
fundamental, rather than incremental, changes in policy and
values are required to move towards sustainable development is
increasingly obvious.

Facilitating access to the means of production

The means of production include not only the land,
agricultural inputs, capital, and technology but also (and this
is likely to become increasingly important) information and
knowledge. In the initial stages, the availability and
redistribution of land for use through community management will
be a key element, together with strategies for the restoration
and rehabilitation of ecologically degraded lands. An agriculture
under ecological management could in many cases lower
requirements for material and energy inputs. Access to
appropriate technology, and the stimulation of the social
creativity to improve on it, should be supported. Finally, access
to information in rural communities may be greatly improved
through telematic networks connecting communal nodes. This
includes quick access to information about the prices of products
and inputs, the monitoring of weather conditions, of the
condition of crops, and of erosion, meteorological forecasts, and
the anticipation of natural disasters, besides programmes of
education and capacity-building (local and at a distance). The
same telematic networks could also be used to collect information
about the state of the agro-ecosystems and of the population to
facilitate regional and national planning.

Eco-restructuring of the national economies and of the
marketing and distribution systems

Eco-restructuring of the national economies and marketing
systems implies a redesign in order to benefit from technological
and productive pluralism. This represents an important
theoretical and organizational challenge. Many traits of the
current economic systems rest on the homogenization of both
production (e.g. mono-cultures) and consumption, which has often
generated serious environmental problems and increased
vulnerability to pests. Productive and distributive systems must
be restructured in such a way that they will operate efficiently
in situations where rural products are highly diversified
(particularly in the tropics) and where the production of a given
agricultural commodity is based on myriad dispersed
exploitations, distributed in time and space. The new
technologies, used within new forms of interlinked but
decentralized social organizations, make possible sophisticated
productive and distributive management making full use of
variability and heterogeneity as assets rather than constraints.
It will also be necessary to develop mechanisms for the
articulation of large-scale, homogeneous agricultural production
(which will continue to exist, directed particularly to urban
consumption and agro-industry and to export) with diversified
small-scale production (thus minimizing or reversing the
expulsion of rural labour to marginal land).

A proportion of the diversified rural production would be used
for self consumption by the peasant populations, contributing to
a balanced diet. The marketable surplus would be composed in
large part of food or industrial crops of high unit value made
possible by local germplasm and ecological conditions; many of
these products would not have competition at the international
level. Active exploration and measures to open up new national
and international markets will be necessary. Peasant agriculture
will increasingly focus on the ecological comparative advantages
rather than on the comparative advantage of cheap labour (the
latter, besides often being associated with low standards of
living, is rapidly losing importance at the world level).

Community empowerment

Creative programmes to improve the living conditions of the
peasant populations will be essential. The role of the new
communication system is essential here, in synergy with the
fostering of social participation and communal self-reliance.
Access to health, housing, and education services should be
improved, as well as access to the means for family planning.
Technological advances, in a participative and decentralized
context, can open up huge opportunities for the discovery of new,
flexible, and adaptive solutions to the traditional liabilities
of rural populations, while respecting their cultural identity.
Support for the peasant populations will in many cases require
the implementation of financial systems capable of managing
thousands of small loans and investments, rather than only a few
massive investments, as is typical of the majority of the
national and international agencies for rural development and
financing.

Research and development

A strong push to scientific and technological research will be
required, directed to improving yields and the profitability of
agricultural systems based (as appropriate) on traditional,
modern, or even completely new systems and making use of local
cultural and ecological comparative advantages. The systematic
and comparative study of the potential of the regional germplasm
is a priority area of research. Another priority is the
implementation of an annotated catalogue or database of the
traditional and modern technologies used in the region and,
whenever possible, those that were used in the past. Such a
catalogue should include the social and ecological conditions to
which these technologies are adapted, their degree of
environmental sustainability and social suitability, the type of
products and their possible yields, and the major economic,
social, cultural, political, or ecological constraints on their
wide utilization. Comparison with other regions of comparable
ecology could be of great utility (for instance between the
technologies used in the tropical moist forests of South America
and in the forests of other regions with ancient agricultural
traditions, such as South-East Asia, or between the semiarid
American and African regions). On the basis of the comparative
analysis of the relative advantages of the different
technologies, it should be possible to select a menu of
technologies as a basis for the development of suitable solutions
for each ecological zone and socio-cultural realm, improving them
on the basis of technological, ecological, and social research.
These would help the development of diversified production,
adapted to the different local conditions but integrated through
regional, national, and international systems of
capacity-building, information, transport, storage, and
distribution.

The improvement of crop varieties through biotechnology and
the relaxation of environmental constraints through the use of
agro-technology, biotechnology, and informatics could include,
for instance: the selection or creation of nitrogen-fixing or
phosphorus concentrating bacterial strains, which are easy to
reproduce and have little environmental impact; the application
of biological pest control; genetic manipulation to increase crop
resistance to pests or drought; and social and anthropological
research directed at improving the cultural and social
suitability of production systems and the quality of the
information and capacity-building systems. New technologies such
as informatics and telematics could play a crucial role. For
instance, serious attention should be given to the possibility of
facilitating access to microcomputers and expert systems by local
communities, to aid fertilizer and irrigation dosage, pest
control, the management and administration of complex
agro-ecosystems, medical diagnosis, education, etc.

The current level of technological development would make it
possible to keep costs within a reasonable level, provided a
decentralized and collective design is adopted, with computers
run by community-based rural units and linked through
telecommunication networks. The research requirements for the
success of this strategy are significant. It suffices to consider
the challenge represented by the need to develop efficient
software for rural populations who are often illiterate or, as is
the case with some peasant communities in Latin America, have a
culture based on magical thinking, distant from Western logic.
This would require new modes of research and interaction,
interdisciplinary teams that include participation by local
farmers (participatory research), the development of
sophisticated forms of iconic communication, and the simultaneous
utilization of alternative cultural paradigms. Regarding
hardware, it will be necessary to develop inexpensive but very
robust equipment, of low obsolescence and easy to update.

Ecological research in combination with anthropological
research, making use both of the empirical knowledge accumulated
by the peasant cultures of the region and of modern science,
would allow sophisticated new forms of ecosystem management. The
sequence and localization of human activities and of the
germplasm would allow effective management of the local
bio-geochemical cycles - for instance, crops grown in a temporal
sequence designed to regenerate their own nutrients, in a spatial
mosaic designed so as to benefit from diversity and heterogeneity
in order to minimize the growth of pest populations, and in a
vertical architecture (such as multi-strata agriculture) allowing
fuller use of resources.

The net result of such a strategy directly focused on peasant
agriculture (upon which millions of people depend) would be an
improvement in the rural quality of life, an associated decrease
in the migratory flows to the urban centres, an important
decrease in ecological degradation, and the utilization of an
economic potential that is currently barely tapped.

The quest for sustainable development in the present
historical context poses new, deep challenges to the ways we
define problems, identify solutions, and implement actions. This
reflects directly upon the issues of the feasibility of
sustainable development and of capacity-building for sustainable
development.

The prevailing mind-set in development and other areas is
showing critical inadequacies. Indeed, in a number of cases, the
very success of classical compartmentalized approaches has led to
the aggravation of the environmental and developmental problems
addressed. Even the language and metaphors we use may be
hindering discussions about sustainable development.3
Of more immediate concern, the present historical context and
dynamics exhibit major differences from those of the past few
decades.

The need for a change in direction was officially recognized
at the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. However, the
new direction is not yet clearly defined; moreover, most of the
discussions and recommendations are still quite
compartmentalized. Sustainable development requires: the
integration of economic, social, cultural, political, and
ecological factors; the constructive articulation of top down
approaches to development with bottom up or grass-roots
initiatives; the simultaneous consideration of local and global
dimensions and of the way they interact; and a broadening of the
space- and time-horizons to accommodate the need for
intragenerational as well as intergenerational equity.

All of this has direct implications for capacity-building. The
question of what kind of capacity is needed to foster sustainable
development and to implement Agenda 21 and other necessary
initiatives in a practical and relevant way must be addressed.
Capacity-building certainly cannot be limited to the transfer of
knowledge and skills from the North to the South.

Many aspects of what is called capacity-building involve
traditional activities such as reinforcing institutions,
developing skills, education, and training for science,
technology and decision-making, the transfer of technology,
mostly in reference to the South where these elements are
critically scarce. However, capacity-building for sustainable
development, in a world marked by a technological, economic, and
political revolution and global interdependence, must be based
upon the capacity for learning to learn, to cope with change and
knowledge gaps, to combine different viewpoints and aspirations
constructively, to tackle interlinkages and complexity, to
integrate rational thinking with emotional experience, to
transform knowledge into wisdom. It is very likely that this will
require new kinds of institutions and new institutional
mechanisms. This type of capacity still needs to be developed,
both in the South and in the North. Although external financial
support will be required in the South, the basic challenge holds
globally, and the cross-fertilization between different
experiences could result in powerful synergies.

Agriculture will represent one of the most important
activities in the new path, and it will have to be conceived of
in a much broader sense than now. Agriculture will have to become
more than a food or an industrial crop production activity; it
will have to encompass the stewardship of the earth's resources.
The sustainable and increased production of food and the
sustainable management of the renewable natural resources need to
be integrated and complement each other in such a way as to meet
the needs of present and future generations while preserving and
even enhancing environmental quality. Using the power,
flexibility, and understanding offered by the new and emerging
technologies and scientific developments, blended when
appropriate with traditional technologies, agriculture will
eventually become synonymous with sustainable and productive
management of eco-resources, which will include not only the
soil, plant and animal varieties, and water, but biodiversity (in
its double function of economic resource and basic ecological
regulator), ecological functions and services such as watershed
and climate regulation, chemical cycling, etc.

1. This overview based on Lopez Cordovez (1993).
2. I am indebted to Dr. Filemón Torres for his inputs.
3. For instance, "development" is often described as a
permanent increase (usually of GNP); expressions such as
"target," "optimal path," or
"trajectory" resonate with ballistic analogies. The
word "sustainability" suggests reaching a state of
constancy, preserving an existing situation. Therefore the phrase
"sustainable development" intuitively sounds
contradictory. The argument here is not that sustainable
development is inherently contradictory (I believe it is not) but
that the wording and conceptualization we use are not well suited
to the new concepts being generated.

Girt, J. (1990) The Sustainable Development of Agricultures
in Latin America and the Caribbean: Strategic Recommendations.
Report to the Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación pare la
Agricultura (IICA), San Jose, Costa Rica.

The transport sector is a major contributor to environmental
change. Apart from the land-take and materials-use implications
of building transport infrastructures and machinery, which are
considerable, environmental stress is imposed by the pollution
implications of transport energy use. Part of the
eco-restructuring agenda must therefore be to reduce the
environmental disturbance caused per unit of transport, which is
mostly a function of the characteristics of different transport
modes and of modal splits, and to reduce the volume of transport.

The issues involved are complex partly because of the systemic
interlinkages between production and consumption patterns, the
characteristics of transportation technologies, the
characteristics of other technologies that can substitute for
physical transportation, and the prevailing incentive structures
that give rise to patterns of land use and technological,
logistical, and transportation choices. Geographical differences
between countries in size, shape, topography, resource endowment,
state of development, and socio-economic conditions also
complicate analysis. So do differences in the structure of
different firms and industries and the locations of different
types of manufacturing activities. Above all, the key factors
influencing transportation those that affect both the scale and
structure of transportation demand and the ways in which these
are met - are dynamic. This systemic complexity means that there
is need for broad and dynamic analysis of the linkages between
transportation and sustainability.

This chapter is necessarily restricted to a partial analysis.
None the less, the insights it gives are motivated by what I
consider to be of special relevance for transportation policy at
the start of an eco-restructuring agenda. It focuses on the
already industrialized countries, where transport and related
arrangements pose the greatest environmental burden and are most
in need of restructuring. It focuses on options and measures to
reduce the volume of freight transport in the near to mid term,
which are investigated in relation to other possibilities for
reducing environmental impacts in the longer term, including
major changes in transportation technology, although these are
not themselves explored here in any detail. Within the scope that
this identifies, the chapter explores those options that provide
greatest room and flexibility for effecting near-term change.
These include the reorganization of production and logistics
arrangements, technological and organizational adaptations within
the confines of existing knowledge, mode-switching even within
the context of the road freight transport category,1
and physical goods transportation substitution possibilities.

The chapter also look at the dynamics of freight
transportation, at the factors affecting developments, and at how
these might be influenced. Because much of the scope for reducing
freight volumes hinges on changing the nature of existing
relationships and trends between freight transport, logistics
(the ways in which companies organize the movement and storage of
goods in the supply chain to consumers), and patterns of
industrial and economic space use, the chapter looks at these
together. Patterns of land use and freight transport in Western
industrialized societies have co-evolved under market conditions
where natural resource productivity has never been a priority,
where road-building has been publicly financed, and where levels
of (demand-led) road provision have been economically and
environmentally excessive. Under these conditions, current
(profit-maximizing) land-use and transport patterns represent an
excessive use of transport. Although there is no necessary link
between market liberalization and transport volumes, deregulation
and shifts toward free trade have contributed to an
internationalization - in some cases a globalization - of
economic activities, which, in practice, has added significantly
to freight tonne-kilometers. For this reason, developments
affecting international trade and/or the relationship between
internationalized economic activities and freight transport
volumes are of interest because they may help or hinder progress
toward eco-restructuring.

The choices made over the substance and coverage of the
chapter in respect to the wider debate on transport and
sustainability are due to my view of the importance of the
transportation sector generally as regards policies and measures
to usher in a restructuring of our economies and societies.
Certainly, it is conceivable that much of the concern over the
sustainability of current transport arrangements would be reduced
were a competitively priced transportation technology based upon
a renewable energy source to become available; for example, a
technology based upon the solar-derived, hydrogen based carriers
that earlier chapters in this book suggest may ultimately be
feasible. However, such technologies are unlikely to become
available within the next 50 years. More importantly, their
development will come about only in the context of appropriate
incentives. In the near term, then, reducing the environmental
impact of transport will depend mostly upon reducing transport
volumes and increasing transport efficiency; i.e. cutting out or
substituting for transport that can be avoided, undertaking
remaining movement so that this does least environmental damage,
and making most productive use of this remaining movement. This
suggests that the preference should be for policy instruments
that will stimulate these changes and simultaneously provide
incentives for the longer-term development of fundamentally more
sustainable transportation technologies. A lead taken along these
lines within the industrialized countries would also signal an
important message for caution over the extent of public road
provision to countries now rapidly building their transportation
infrastructures.